Gale Encyclopedia of American Law Volume 3 P35 fully illuminates today's leading cases, major statutes, legal terms and concepts, notable persons involved with the law, important documents and more. Legal issues are fully discussed in easy-to-understand language, including such high-profile topics as the Americans with Disabilities Act, capital punishment, domestic violence, gay and lesbian rights, physician-assisted suicide and thousands more. | 328 CUMMINGS HOMER STILLE Homer S. Cummings. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. in various prison conditions and in the general operation of the Federal Bureau of Prisons that had been established in 1930 to oversee the 11 federal prisons that then existed. With public fear escalating over the 1932 kidnapping of the baby son of national hero Charles Lindbergh an expanding list of public enemies and mob violence at a peak Cummings also advocated for the establishment of a maximum security prison for the nation s most dangerous criminals. He chose Alcatraz Island located in the San Francisco Bay to house the country s most dangerous criminals. Nicknamed Uncle Sam s Devil s Island the prison opened in 1934 and quickly entered the public imagination as a symbol of the tough punishment to be dealt out to the worst offenders. In 1935 Cummings merged the Justice Department s Bureau of Investigation BI the Prohibition Bureau and the Bureau of Identification into the newly renamed federal bureau of investigation FBI all under the control of BI Director J. Edgar Hoover. In 1937 after the conservative . Supreme Court had overturned much of Roosevelt s new deal legislative reforms that focused on moving the country back on the road to economic prosperity Cummings drafted a proposal that came to be known as the courtpacking plan. Enthusiastically endorsed by Roosevelt the plan would have given the president the power to appoint a new judge for each incumbent judge who was 70 or older. Because six of the nine justices were over the age of 70 the new law would have meant a Supreme Court with 15 members. Whereas the president and his attorney general saw the proposal as a way to get around the fact that Supreme Court justices have lifetime tenure such a drastic change in the composition of the court was too much even for the Democratic Congress and the bill failed. Chief Justice Charles evans hughes and Associate Justice owen Roberts began to vote more often with the more liberal justices .
